The hook, buried in a nice chunk of fat white pork about the size of one’s fist, trailed out astern, made a most attractive bait, with no sign of hook or line. The next thing was to throw out a few scraps of pork, to draw him and his pilot fish close up towards it.
A shark has very poor sight, but he makes up for it with instinct, which on occasions, I have seen used with terrible exactitude. His pilot fish, a bit bigger than a mackerel, and striped like a zebra will go up and nose round, but for some reason, will never touch the bait. It is not certain what, if any, message they convey to the shark, but the fact remains, if they do not approve of the morsel, the shark will hardly ever touch it. It is by no means every shark that is accompanied by pilot fish. In any case, he will snap up the odd outlying bits, and head up for the bigger lump, which he takes in his stride.
A shark’s mouth is right underneath, but that does not compel him to turn on his back to everything. More often than not, he will just slide his nose over it, or, at the most, turn on his side. God knows, they can do enough damage without turning over, and I have seen a man’s leg go, like snapping a carrot; the whole thing done with such horrible quickness, the man hardly knew it was gone. This seems barely conceivable, but it must be realised that a shark’s tooth is sharper than an ordinary razor, and has a cutting surface that can only be believed when experimented with. The edges consist of extremely fine serrations, which easily wear down, but though the shark wears out one set of teeth, that in no way bothers him, for he quickly grows another row, and you can catch them with three, five, and even seven or more rows. I have taken one shark tooth between my fingers, and drawn it firmly and quickly down a Strand Magazine, and cut clean through seven pages. This will give some idea of what our friend can do, when backed up by the enormous muscles, attached to his tremendously powerful jaws.
However, to go back to the catching of our old enemy. Having gathered up the outlying bits, if you have not aroused his suspicions, he will come along and quickly take the baited hook in his mouth. It is just here, that fisherman versus shark is put to the test. If you let him swallow the bait, he will snap your wire; if you only let him get the bait between his lips, and hold it there, as he often will, when you strike you will either pull the bait out, or your hook will go through the flesh, which easily tears away.
You must let him get it down to the corner of his mouth, where it hooks into the gristly portion of the muscles at the joint of his jaws, and then you have got him for a certainty. At the first jerk he commences to dive, but he never goes down far, and you have just got to get that strain on this small line — regardless of the burns it causes through running out through your fingers — until you can bring him up again, and his nose above the water, Having got him there, and the stern of the ship (from which all shark fishing takes place) not rising and falling too heavily, it is not a difficult matter then to hold his nose up and drown him. Most species are not only cowards, but are extraordinarily easily drowned by lifting and dropping their heads, and so forcing the water in through their gills.
If you want a downright good tussle, where you are pretty certain to leave lots of skin on the line, hook a 15 ft. tiger shark. He will give you all the fun you want. I still carry marks on my hand, left by the teeth of one of this breed — even after he had been landed on deck, and his head cut off.
He was the Captain’s catch, and to make doubly sure had had a harpoon driven home; otherwise I don’t think we could have possibly got him on board. He fought like a fiend, and as he came over the tail amidships, lashing and snapping, his first accomplishment was to take a piece out of the Captain’s arm. Admittedly it was not a very big piece, but it was sufficient to be uncomfortable for many days to come. He landed on deck with a crash, and immediately sunk his teeth into a spare topmast, lying on deck. The carpenter was standing by with his axe; as, the first job, when you get one of these fighters, is to lop off his tail. After dancing round for about fifteen minutes, Chips at last managed to get his tail where he wanted it, and off it came. It was not a difficult matter then to get him steadied down, and have his head off.
One chap went to turn the head over with his foot, and immediately the jaws closed on it. Fortunately, his boot was unlaced, and he was able to kick it off and so save his toes.
One foolish first voyager drew his sheath-knife, and before anyone could stop him — in an act of joking bravado said, “You!” and attempted to drive his knife into the shark’s body. An ordinary knife will not penetrate shark skin, so the result was, the blade of the knife stopped, and his hand continued down, severing all the sinews of the first three fingers of his hand.
That made two for the hospital, and I made the third, for whilst getting hold of the head, and standing it on end, I’m hanged if the jaw didn’t snap, and catch my fingers, and it was some time before we could prise the mouth open and release them.
There is only one safe thing to do when getting one of these warriors on deck and that is to dislocate his jaws at once — which we had foolishly omitted to do.
It is no child’s play catching sharks, particularly when carried out on the slippery decks of a ship, but such is the feeling between sailor and shark that a man will always willingly lose his watch below to terminate the existence of one of these wretched beasts.
The tales one could tell of the horrors of men falling overboard, sometimes unthinkingly dangling their legs in the water from a stage, sometimes taking a chance and going for a swim, when to all intents and purposes it seems impossible for a shark to be within miles; even on the beaches, children paddling, have been taken. Incidents of this kind could be multiplied indefinitely, but it is doubtful if it would make good reading.
Frequently, these sharks are so ferocious that when hungry they will fight, and often tear each other to pieces. I have caught them with huge gashes, and the scars of old wounds, inflicted in one of these furious fights.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
I GET MY “TICKET”
Soon after our arrival in Calcutta four of us were “out of our time,” or apprenticeship, and fully qualified, as far as sea service went, to face the terrors of the examination room for our second mate’s certificate.
Through the two or three previous years we were supposed to have swatted up mathematics, navigation, nautical astronomy, seamanship, Rule of the Road, and all sorts of stuff that the Board of Trade have concocted to prove the square-rigged, deep-sea mate. By far and away the majority of which, once the coveted blue paper that entitles you to the eventual certificate, has been obtained, is stored away, or forgotten, until the next examination looms up on the mental horizon.
Calcutta used to have a name for ease in getting through, but when we faced the music, the new examiner, Captain Jenny, was trying to work off the “easy” name, and that in no unmeasured manner. In fact, he made a well-known boast that he would fail three out of every four that came up for examination, and, in our case, made good his boast. Curiously enough, although I was the duffer of the party, I was the one to get through. Although I had no particular objection to mathematics and navigation, I was certainly no adept, whereas one of our chaps, Austin by name, who went up with me, used to work the ship’s position every day, and, with the cussedness of fate, he was the first to be chucked out. No second chances then.
When the head examiner (Jenny) came in looking at some of the papers, and I heard him say, “Oh, this won’t do,” I actually laid down my pen, making sure that I was going to be the next one to close the door from the outside, but it was Dale that took the count.